Free Website Hosting Will Actually Cost You These 4 Things

Once you realize how much money you’re paying for designers, coders, and copywriters, you might be tempted to try to save a little bit of money by going with a free or cheap website host.

A host is a host, right? Wrong. Believe us when we tell you this is not an area where you want to cut back. Take the time to find a quality WordPress web hosting solution instead of simply going with the cheapest provider.

Google also notices when people leave your site without interacting with it. Your bounce rate is also going to hurt your SEO, which further hurts your traffic.

Sales Leads

The slow and spotty performance from a free host can also sabotage nearly all digital marketing efforts or campaigns.

You’ve created engaging copy with great visuals in a social media or pay-per-click campaign. However, all of your time and money is wasted as people click on your ads, but quickly bounce because your landing page is either down or so slow that they assume it’s down.

Your sales funnel has a very serious leak before your leads have a chance to travel down it.

Actual Sales

Your website host is particularly important if you have an eCommerce site or you sell absolutely anything on your site. Slow speeds are the leading cause of shopping cart abandonment, if your visitors even get that far.

The damage that a slow site can have on your bottom line is not even measured in seconds, it’s measured in fractions of a second. In fact, a 100-millisecond delay in load time can cause yourconversion rates to drop by 7%.

At the same time, your frustrated users will leave your site and go directly to a competing site to complete the purchase they abandoned with you. You’re essentially gift-wrapping buy ready leads to the competition.

As you can see, free or cheap hosting is far from the bargain that it may appear to be. Not all web hosting is created equal and poor hosting can hurt your SEO and your traffic, as it siphons your hard-earned leads and sales into your competition’s funnel.

Spending just a little bit more money will give you a lot more value in the long run.